


lion-hearted girl

by villanelle



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Game of Thrones Fusion, Crossover, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-22 10:18:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2504255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/villanelle/pseuds/villanelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You may pass for a princess, but never a queen, her mother had said. </p>
<p>From entanglements with her Queensguard to threats emerging at every border, the beginning of Historia's reign is anything but smooth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't stop thinking about this meme prompt, but it's become a rather bastardized merging of the two worlds in my hands. Vacillated between envisioning Historia as a Targaryen and a Lannister; ended up with the latter. Also, there are some details that venture into the spoiler territory of A Dance with Dragons.

_**HISTORIA** _

 

_You’ve dreamed of something like this once._ _Of walking into a room with your head held high, your form graceful and admired and not invisible._ _People actually looking at you. With acknowledgement. With approval._

_With love._

_Mama would bestow a tender kiss to your brow and regard you with pride; perhaps, you would be wearing something she sewed. Under the gold-lit dome of the sept’s central chamber, the shadowy figure known as Father would embrace you for all to see._

_But what actually happens is this:_ _Mama is dead and so is Father, despite the greatness of his name which had seemed to you so powerful._

_The name which is now yours._

_You walk, keeping your paces measured and slow as you were instructed, into the Sept of Baelor. Tradition would usually dictate that the High Septon await your ascendance at the top of the steps outside. Too dangerous, the small council had decided in your case. Peace in the seven kingdoms has been proclaimed and trumpeted, but that’s just promotional publicity, more parts overblown hype and fiction than fact. The smallfolk tore a man apart the last time a royal paraded through the streets, and a voracious appetite for violence lingers still, like dry bush ready to catch fire._

_Every person gathered in the sept is watching you. Some are smiling, blandly, but many more are simply grim._

_And the truth is that nothing has changed._ _You will never hear Mama’s voice sweet with love. Instead, an echo in your ear of what she always hissed: No one wants you._ _No one wants you here._ _You are still an accident. Worse than that. A mistake._ _You just happen to be somewhat convenient. Even more importantly, your appearance is appropriate; the strands of your hair are more Lannister gold than your father’s._

_So here you are, a brushed and dressed up puppet-doll through which others will speak and maneuver strings._

_The High Septon Nickolas has spoken twice and is peering at you now, most likely wondering if you are as slow-witted as many believe._

_“Rise,” he whispers urgently._

_You stand, and there’s a new weight draped around your shoulders, a heavier one upon your head._

_“In the light of the Seven, I now proclaim Historia of the House Lannister, first of her name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.”_

 

_“Long may she reign.”_

* * *

 

“The Martells hate us,” Historia said to her uncle as soon as the others had left.

Another small council adjourned, another session throughout which the lords at the table had shushed her and talked over her.

Historia had bitten her lip to hold back her words from spilling out like childish protests during the meeting, but she was less inclined to do so with a greatly reduced audience. After all, her uncle was nearly all that remained of the strength of House Lannister, and if she could not voice her concerns to her own blood, then she truly was as alone as she felt in King’s Landing.

A fortnight ago, she had been unaware that this uncle even existed. In the house of her maternal grandparents, she had been raised as Krista Lenz, bearing the common name of her mother’s family. When everything had abruptly changed, Rodrick Lannister’s reasons for infrequent but still significant visits to the household were suddenly made clear, and now Historia too was recognized as a Lannister.

By those who found it to their advantage to do so at least.

Her uncle’s status as a Lannister wasn't rock-solid either, she'd learned. At the Wall, where he’d served as Lord Commander, he had used “Smith” as his surname.

“Indeed,” Erwin said. “The Martells hate us, and they have substantial reason to.”

He was tall, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, rather like the Wall from which he had recently came. He was even still garbed in his northern furs, which were not at all in fashion at court but had not prevented numerous ladies from flashing appreciative sidelong glances at him. _He looks more like a lion than I ever will_ , Historia thought resentfully.

_You’re a runt, Mama had said with a grimacing smile over her cup of wine. A lion cub, but not one worth keeping. In the wild, they would have devoured you to keep the pack strong._

_Later on, her mother had remarked in one of her more gracious moods: You may pass for a princess, but never a queen._

Except now she was.

“It seems unwise then,” Historia said, staring at her uncle as steadily as she could. “To appoint a Martell as a member of my Queensguard.”

Only seven people were supposed to be in attendance at the small council meeting, but it had been an unusually filled room. The head of House Martell had brought one of his many daughters, presenting her as simply Ymir. A lady of lithe form that towered over Historia, though not in the intimidating manner that some did, and it wasn’t hard, Historia admitted, for others to seem so tall relative to herself. Ymir’s face was different from those of most Westerosi nobility, but in no way was it less refined. A pointed chin, high cheekbones with a spattering of freckles, and a heavy-lidded, slanting gaze rimmed with kohl so that the fine dark eyes appeared even more alluring. Her countenance had been one of haughty boredom for most of the session, but when her father had called her to stand before the queen, she’d tilted her head at Historia, looking intrigued but not impressed, before bending into a bow rather than a curtsy.

Relative to the other ladies at court, Ymir had been, simply put, more lightly garbed in saffron silks that left her shoulders bare as well as her back. When she had swept into the bow, Historia could hardly hold back from grinning upon noticing how several of the scandalized council members arched their eyebrows. But then the young queen had found her eyes returning to the strong brown slopes of Ymir's exposed shoulders and back, muscles moving sinuously beneath the skin. Ymir had looked up while Historia was still staring, inducing the queen into a heated blush. 

Historia wasn’t sure why Ymir’s slightly mocking eyes stayed in her memory so clearly.

Another presence that Historia had not expected: her uncle’s second-in-command, First Ranger Levi Snow.

Everyone else had departed from the room, and she was at a loss of what to say as Levi remained, glancing at her as if she were the one that should have excused herself. It seemed that the rather short but sturdily built, dark-haired man followed her uncle everywhere. It was also becoming apparent from the man’s controlled glares that Levi had not forgotten her initial mistaken belief that he was her uncle’s personal steward.

“Do you think Ymir would be unsuited for the role?” Erwin asked. “It’s unusual, extremely unusual of course for a woman to be admitted to the Kingsguard, but I’m surprised that your judgment would be so harsh on someone of the same sex.”

“It’s not because of that,” Historia replied and then added with hesitation, “I dislike the way she looked at me during council. She seemed....contemptuous.”

Even to her ears, the explanation sounded childish as soon it came out, and she flushed as Erwin and Levi let out twin barks of laughter.

“There are many people looking at you that way whom you should worry about far more,” her uncle said at last. “If you hope to still be on the Iron Throne a month from now, your skin will have to be thicker than that. House Lannister is not rich in friends, and every other noble house smells blood in the water with your father dead. We need the Martells. Granting one of them a white cloak is a boon we can afford. Now, we have more important things to discuss, namely, the Targaryens.”

“But Master Dawk said those rumors aren’t worth our concern,” Historia protested.

“Master Dawk is an idiot,” voiced Levi, who had taken out his hunting knife and was playing casually with it on the small council’s three-hundred-year-old black walnut table.

“Nile can be a little short-sighted at times,” Erwin amended mildly. “My sources in Essos have confirmed that the boy and girl are very much alive and real. They’ve spent various parts of their childhood with different Targaryen sympathizers, raised under common names rather like how you were Krista Lenz. Apparently, it hasn’t been hard disguising them since neither one possesses particularly Valyrian features. The boy is said to take after his Martell mother. The girl, his half-sister, is described as closer in resemblance to the late Lady Stark.”

“Lyanna,” Levi muttered darkly. A deft flick of his wrist sent his knife veering into a semi-arc before scratch-sliding off a cup and returning at a less dangerous angle to his waiting hand.

Historia fell back against her chair, too stunned to maintain the posture her septa had beaten into her. The past weeks had delivered revelation after revelation until the foundations of her identity had crumbled to larger forces, and nothing seemed true enough to be accepted as truth. How many times had she heard the story of the Targaryens’ downfall, of their long lineage being erased into dust? It was a frequent and favored subject in songs, in history lessons, in one-sided conversations with her father.

And now to find out that there survived not merely one, but two descendants of that great house, two heirs that surely hated her without ever knowing her and would eventually, or perhaps, already look towards the throne she sat upon as a Lannister figurehead.

“They’ll want me dead,” she breathed out.

“That’s quite likely,” Erwin agreed, continuing to peruse the sheaves of parchment in front of him. “I do wonder though about the exact nature of familial ties between this pair of dragonspawn. With Targaryens, there’s an equal probability of them wanting to kill off each other as there is of them engaging in carnal relations with one another. We should pray for the former scenario.”

Historia couldn’t help but feel a little more interested in the latter. “Oh, relations between brother and sister?”

At Erwin’s absent-minded nod, she decided to press the topic even further, half out of curiosity and half for the rare opportunity of displaying knowledge against her uncle. “Did you know there’s a rumor that your side of the family also partook in such practices?”

She watched her uncle’s reaction closely, and by the look of it, Levi was very invested in hearing Erwin’s reply as well. A slightly sadistic sense of glee crept into Historia at seeing Erwin disarmed by her question, a spasm of shock wrinkling his usual aesthetic composure. He cleared his throat and responded sternly, “Not every speculation is worth listening to, little dove. Returning to the matter of your Queensguard, if you’re so troubled at having a Martell as a white cloak, then we shall review her based on how she performs at the tourney in a few days. Would that satisfy you?”

“Yes,” Historia answered, thinking of how Ymir’s eyes had mocked even as the woman had bowed to her. “Yes, I would like to see how she fights.”

_And how a knight of House Martell will serve a Lannister queen._  

 


	2. Chapter 2

_**YMIR** _

She found King’s Landing utterly repulsive.

The city stank like an open wound, still festering from being ravaged by war and pestilence, food shortage and murderous paranoia. Under the tread of her horse, the streets were slippery with slime and the remains of yesterday’s fish. Order and the lack of it seemed equal in prevalence, but she perceived a general structure to the city. A ring of noblemen’s manses and decadent brothels sat atop the more modest homes. Crowded at the bottom sprawled the slums and the whorehouses where even a piece of copper could buy less fastidious men some comfort. Though their retinue passed by the unwashed and the begging as swiftly as their mounts could carry them, her eyes lingered on all the teeming masses.

“Refugees,” their escort from the castle explained. “They come in streams from every direction but especially from the north these days.”

“Why the north?”

“They flee from the _Jötunn_ ,” the escort said, his voice dipping into the accents of his native dialect before breaking nervously into a laugh.

Ymir considered herself well-versed in the Common Tongue, but this was a word wholly alien to her. “ _Jötunn_?”

“Yes, I believe there’s another term they use for it in Dorne….Not that Dornishmen would have much use for it in a more forgiving climate. Ah yes, _gigantes_.”

At hearing this word, Ymir snorted derisively. _Gigantes_? Mythical figures around which children’s tales were spun.

As they continued up the capital’s winding paths and past the many markets, her mind returned to yearning for home, for Sunspear’s warmth and its fragrant night bazaars that filled the air with spice.

She did not like the castle of the Red Keep, den of lions that it was, much better. Buttermilk ladies in their heavy gowns swarmed her, all pale trembling flesh and stares fixed on her skin as if she were some exotic feast for their eyes.

She had argued with her father about coming here, had suggested that Dorne could ignore the Lannisters’ invitation. But in the settling dust of war’s aftermath, it had become clear that the lions of Casterly Rock, weakened though they were, still remained dominant with Darius Lannister taking over as the Hand of his granddaughter queen.

Thus, Ymir found herself in attendance at the coronation, doubting that the farce of a crowning would offer any entertainment or incident worth her time.

Until she laid eyes on the most breath-stealing girl she’d ever seen.

The queen was as porcelain-skinned as any of the other girls at court, but from the moment she entered the sept, the light from the oculus bathed her in radiance, making her presence seem brighter than all the rest. Her southron hairstyle, which Ymir had thought unflattering on other ladies, formed a beautifully braided halo around her solemn face. Her gown was shimmering gold and blood crimson, colors that Ymir had long learned to despise in combination, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the Lannister queen and thought to herself that no one else could look like such a vision in those hues.

The young queen Historia seemed more heaven-sent than earthbound that day.

It meant nothing, Ymir thought to herself later. Just a natural reaction brought on by the spectacle of the event. Like being blinded momentarily by the sun.

Except she came face-to-face with the queen a few days later.

The reaction was amplified. It felt like every nerve in her body was hyper-sensitive and like the pulse of her heart wanted to escape the confines of her ribcage.

But Ymir was a Martell. Hers was a house that had remained proud in the face of Targaryens, Lannisters, and every other foreign dynasty that stretched out its hand for conquest. The words that she had repeated since childhood rippled through her. _We are not like other Westerosi. What are our words? Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken._

She kept her gaze coolly objective and worked hard at picking out the little queen’s imperfections. The girl was an actress, Ymir observed. Darius and another male relative, the Lord Commander of the Wall, spoke for the queen more often than Historia did for herself, but when Ymir was called forth to be presented, Historia leaned forward and extended a hand.

“I would be greatly pleased to have the friendship of a Martell,” Historia said to her before the rest of the small council. A polite statement taken word-for-word from the script of courtly etiquette, but then the queen’s voice dropped so low that it seemed like an exchange narrowed to two. “Particularly yours, lady Ymir.”

“I’m not much of a lady,” was all Ymir could manage to breathe in reply.

Her curt answer made Historia laugh, girlish and free before the queen masked herself once more at her uncle’s gesture.

After the small council was dismissed, Ymir walked back to where their guest quarters were situated, her mind consumed. _So this is what all those songs and poems went on and on about._

She perched her elbows on one of the wider windows that overlooked the whole city, content in the suffusion of feeling that washed over her. She did not like King’s Landing any more than when she’d first disembarked onto the city docks, but now, she imagined to herself, she could perhaps be persuaded to stay.

 

* * *

 

_**JEAN** _

_Three weeks earlier_

“I hate the north,” he grumbled as his left boot slipped yet again on a sheet of exceptionally slippery ice, sliding him precariously close to the Wall’s outer battlements.

“Oh, you hail from the south, right?” Marco was gripping his forearm in a flash, preventing his slide from veering into a horizontal fall.

Jean opened his mouth to thank him and then closed it upon registering how his fellow ranger was still grasping onto him as if he were some swooning maiden. He pulled his arm free.

“Yes,” he said, straightening himself on a patch of more secure footing. Well, it was as secure as one could possibly find on top of a seven-hundred-feet high monolith of ice. As newly inducted members of the Night’s Watch, they had been assigned to their first round of sentinel duty. _On watch for what_? Jean wondered with a mental snarl. _Snow flurries and lost owls? I can’t believe I’ve been reduced to this._

A month since he had left home, and he still burned with resentment. As the sixth son of a large noble family, he had never expected to come into possession of lands and titles like his older brothers. Nevertheless, Jean had hoped to stay in the south, had pictured becoming a squire to a prestigious lord and climbing the ranks himself one day.

Instead, he was here at the Wall, at the edge between the seven kingdoms’ outskirts and the hinterland of whatever lay beyond. _Nothing_ , he thought, another spark of anger rising. _I’m going to either fall down this icy cliff one day or be bored to death guarding nothing but miles of frost and half-dead forest._

“Are you feeling alright?” Marco was eyeing him with a little concern.

Jean grunted a vague noise of unhappiness. “Let’s just keep moving.”

The black-cloaked pair resumed their patrol along the Wall’s crenellated parapets, stopping at intervals to check the catapults that were never used.

Running a gloved finger along the rope sling of a trebuchet, Marco rebounded to their earlier curtailed topic and pondered, “I suppose, relative to here, we should all be technically considered as from the south. Myself, I was born in the Stormlands. On bad days, the weather at home wasn’t any better than it is here, but I do miss being close to the sea.”

“I miss being close to human civilization rather than the dregs of it,” Jean retorted and then instantly regretted his bitter words. “Sorry, I didn’t mean you -- I mean, you’re not included in that group --”

“In the dregs of humanity group?” Marco asked, eyes filled with mirth. “Hmm, how kind of you to clarify.” He paused, brushing a hand over the wooden arm of the catapult. Marco knew how to sail, Jean remembered suddenly. A few nights ago, a circle of boys, all new to the Night’s Watch and listless around the common hall fire, had pestered each other into showing what scarce possessions they had left of home. When it had come to Marco’s turn, he’d pulled out from the inner lining of his cloak a scrap of fabric, gold faded into mustardy yellow, as well as a piece of bone. The fabric was from the sail of a boat he had grown up navigating around the waters of Storm’s End. The bone, he had explained, was all he had left of an older brother who had inspired him to join the Night’s Watch.

_What a morbid keepsake_ , Jean had and still thought.

“I understand what you meant though,” Marco continued. “Where I grew up was probably nowhere as lively as Highgarden, but even so, it felt more alive than here.”

“Yet every time I see you, you have a smile on your face?”

“Yes,” Marco answered, his expression now fully serious. “I don’t think we’re the dregs of humanity here. I think we have a purpose.”

Jean had a snort ready in reply, but a sound, unfamiliar and ominous, caught the attention of both boys. It reverberated like thunder and then like a thousand bones being fractured and broken apart slowly. They glanced at each other wordlessly and rushed to the edge of the ramparts.

The two young rangers staggered back, uncomprehending. Nothing. Nothing was supposed to be beyond the Wall.

Except they saw that something was.

 

* * *

 

_**LEVI**_  

He had not felt this surrounded by filth since he was a child scrounging for scraps in Flea Bottom.

“Remind me again why we had to arrange a meeting here,” he growled at his companion.

Beside him, Erwin was scanning the crowded tavern room under the hood of his pine green cloak. _It’s necessary, Levi had told him. You’re a Lannister and the second most powerful man in this city, perhaps in the whole of seven kingdoms right now. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb anywhere past the Street of Silk._

They had ventured very much past the Street of Silk. This was territory foreign to those of noble birth, but it wasn’t to Levi. He had thieved and honed his knife at more deadly crafts here, an education imparted upon him by a man he had called Kenny but who was now known in higher circles as Lord Kenneth Bolton.

“The friend whom we’re supposed to meet requested this setting specifically,” Erwin answered distractedly.

“I thought you said your friend was a maester of the Citadel,” Levi rejoined, wondering if it was worth risking his health to order a drink from the dingy bar across the room.

“Indeed, she was.”

“ _She_? Seven hells, we’re meeting one of your whoring canaries, aren’t we?”

“No, we aren’t, though I’ll remind you that they do make incredibly useful informants,” Erwin said with a smile that Levi found irritating. “This friend was a maester at the Citadel for many years. In fact, she worked all the way up to earn a link of Valyrian steel in her chain. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for us, she was expelled recently for her rather….bold experiments. Oh, you can go get a drink if you’d like. She recommended their selection of liquors here.”

“She had us meet here because of the vine?” Levi groused incredulously.

“Not exactly,” came a voice to his right. The woman’s face, framed with a mess of brown tresses, appeared a little frightening in the tavern light. She sported over one eye a bizarre contraption consisting of a round fragment of glass and metal wire attaching it to her ear and the collar of her robe. Levi wasn’t sure if he had ever laid eyes upon a stranger person, and considering his history, it was an unusual feeling.

“I chose this place partly for the vine,” she said with a beaming smile. “And partly for the privacy.”

Groaning, Levi pivoted and made his way to the barkeep. By the time he returned to his associates, he admitted internally that the woman’s second reason made some amount of sense. There were too many spying eyes and ears in the Red Keep as well as the Citadel. Here, amidst the cacophony of drunks and the city’s less uptight citizens, there did seem to be less chance of being overheard. Forfeiting his usual standards of neatness, Levi lowered three sloshing tankards onto the table.

“You have my thanks,” the woman toasted him and then promptly downed over half of the drink with deep gulps. Levi took a sip of his own, winced at the sharp ale, and had to acknowledge that he was impressed. When she resubmerged, she seemed to have realized her neglected introduction.

“Hange,” she said, an ink-stained hand extending forward. He didn’t take it. She carried on, unperturbed, “Formerly of the Citadel, now in the employment of the Alchemists’ Guild. I’ve heard much about you, First Ranger, from the Lord Commander here. What was it you said, Erwin? An unmatched skill with blades?” Her smile acquired a bit of slyness to its curve.

“That surprises me,” Levi remarked. “I’ve only known Erwin to be stingy with praise and much more keen on discipline.”

The man in question coughed pointedly. “If we could get back to the matter at hand….”

“The hand you use to discipline?” quipped Hange, earning her a formidable Lannister glare.

Erwin held her gaze and said softly, “Not quite. The matter I’m referring to relates directly to your research.”

The contortion of her face as her expression transformed from mere amusement to manic intensity was immediate and fascinating. “Truly?”

“Truly. I can’t disclose it here, but I had the boardroom in the back cleared out.”

The three of them stood and made their way through the tavern until they came to a narrow rear corridor. Two other members of the Night’s Watch stood guard there in front of a doorway. Erwin gave them a curt nod of acknowledgement and walked past them into the room. Hange followed.

Levi did not. He already knew what was awaiting their appraisal in that room. Closing his eyes, he recalled to mind how three weeks ago, his blades had come so dangerously close to failing for the first time.

Though he sometimes imagined the numerous ways human foes could bring an end to his life, the great shadow of darkness that he had seen on the Wall promised a death beyond any of those in his nightmares.

_In the north, they say the Jötunn sleeps._

 

_Not anymore._

 

* * *

 

_**HANGE** _

The only piece of furniture in the room was a low cyvasse table where men usually came to play and gamble. Rather than carved game pieces placed on the board though, there was simply a bundle wrapped in a spare cloak.

She stepped forward and pushed the folds of cloth aside.

It was a mass of flesh. Red, raw, and unlike any she’d ever come across in her dissections.

At one end were roughly hewn shreds of tissue. The rest of it looked like someone had skinned a creature, stripping the dermis away to reveal subcutaneous layers of fibers, fat, and muscle. It was void however, she noted, of blood vessels.

_Thumb-like in form_ , she observed. _Like part of a hand._

Not a human hand though. She took a quick mental measurement. The thing on the table was easily longer than a human forearm.

Hange removed the glass over her eye. In her ears hummed the echoes of children’s bedside yarns and the whispers traded like a forbidden currency in the lower streets.

_So it’s true then. There lives something beyond the Wall._

 

_In the north, the old tell the young: beware of the Jötunn._

_In the south, the Dornish translation: Gigantes._

_In the Common Tongue, the smallfolk simply say: Titans._

 


End file.
